Cilea: L'Arlesiana Opera Holland Park, 6 July 2003
Rosa Mamai – Rosalind Plowright
Vasilly Savenko - Baldassare
Federico – Sean Ruane
Vivetta – Kate Ladner
Metifio - Nicholas Todorovic
Marco - William Peel
L’innocente – Zoe Todd
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/ Conductor Charles Peebles
Director Jamie Hayes
Designer Peter Rice
Lighting Designer Roger Frith

Another triumph in Holland Park!

L'Arlesiana was produced successfully by Opera Holland Park in 1998, but this new production makes even finer use of the setting and semi-rural surroundings, and of the huge width of the canopied stage. It brings the action into the auditorium and even places some important scenes in front of the orchestra, all done with great panache and attention to detail, and naturalness. The chorus members are busily engaged and individualised, so as to bring to life the feeling of a farming community with its children. The story is complex enough to hold interest to the end and I find the score, under-rated by many commentators, captivating.

Charles Peebles has the RPO playing idiomatically, and this evening can be strongly recommended to doubters for the real 'Italian opera' experience, with lots of local colour, and a good strong plot with dramatic contrasts - the betrothal feast is disrupted with a magnificent fight and total mayhem, and presiding over the family and the opera is the baleful figure of Rosalind Plowright [pictured], a destructive, possessive mother who precipitates the conflicts and finally suicide of her too well-loved older son (Sean Ruane, a marvellous tenor [pictured]), who is torn between duty and his own surrender to the charms of the girl from Arles, who we never see.

All this is managed by Jamie Hayes on sets by the veteran designer Peter Rice, and from seats near the front it was possible to see the surtitles and follow the twists and turns of the story which gradually uncovers the fragile relationships around the frustrated and hysterical mother of Rosalind Plowright, a thin figure suggesting a lack of genuine warmth (especially towards her handicapped younger son) and packing a powerful punch vocally. The principals are cast from strength. Kate Ladner as the besotted and gullible Vivetta (something of a Micaëla figure) is pressed into service to try to lure Federico back into the family circle, but a sinister intruder Metifio (Nicholas Todorovic) ruins all the plans, which we could tell were never going to work.

We were particularly pleased to see, as the wise shepherd Baldassare, the sonorous Russian bass Vassily Savenko [pictured], who had emigrated from the Soviet Republic to UK and initially had some difficulty re-establishing a career based in England.

This is a production in somewhat the same class as Opera Holland Park's Fidelio, and that is high praise indeed. The opera tingles with life and warranted its acclamation by a well satsified audience.

I believe that Cilea's L'Arlesiana, the opera in which Caruso made his debut, has a good claim for restitution to the regular repertoire.

RECORDING: As previously noted in my review of the earlier production, the EMI Classics CDs released c.1998, & which I received for review after the original production at Holland Park, are fully recommendable for singing, conducting and recording, and highly desirable as a complement to this live presentation; they seem already to have been deleted, unfortunately, so may be hard to find.

There is a truly magnificent archive of production photos of L'Arlesiana on the Opera Holland Park website.

See also the review in The Independent 9 July, which complements mine